Custer chronicle. [volume] (Custer City, Black Hills, D.T. [S.D.]) 1880-1890, 1887-11-26
The Beginnings of a Poet.

Whittier began to rhyme very early
and kept his gift a secret from ali, ex-
cept his oldest sister, fearing that his
father, who was a prosaic man, would
think that he was wasting time. lie
wrote under the fence, in the attic, in
the barn-wherever he could escape
observation; and as pen and ink were
not always available. he sonsaNmes
used chalk, and even charcoal. Treat
was the surprise of the family when
some of his verses were unearthed,
literally unearthed, from under a heap
of rubbish in q garnet; but his father
frowned upon these evidences OF the
bent of his mind, not out of unkind-
ness, but because he doubted the suffi-
cheney Of the boys education for a
literary life, and did not wish to in
spirc him with hopes which might
never be fulfilled.
His sister had faith in him, never
theless, and, without his knowledge,
she sent n of his poems to the editor
of The Free Press, a newspaper pub
lished in Newburyport. Whittier was
helping his father to repair a stone
wall by the roadside when the carrier
flung a copy of the paper to him, and,
unconscious that anything of his was
in it, DC opened it and glanced up and
down the columns. His eyes fell on
some verses called ''The Exile's De-
parture."
Fond scenes, which delighted my youthful
existence,
With feelings Of sorrow / bid We adieu-
A lasting ac:eu; for now, dim in the dis
The shores of Hibernia recedc from my
view.
Farewell to the cliffs, tempest-beaten and
Which guard the loved shores of my own
native land;
Farewell TO the village and sail-shadowed
bay,
The forest-crowned hill and the water
washed strand"
His eyes swan; it was his own poem,
the first he ever had in print.
what is the matter with theep' his
father demanded, seeing how dazed he
was; but, though he resumed his work
on the wall, he could not speak, and
he had TO steal a glance at the paper
again and again. before he could con-
vince himself that he was not dream
ing. Sure enough, the poem was
there with his initial ut the foot of it..
w, Haverhill, June 1st, 1926"
and, better still, this editorial notice:
IF w. at Haverhill, will continue
TO favor US with pieces beautiful as the
one inserted in poetical depart
ment of to-day, We shall esteem it a
favor"
The editor thought so much of THE
EXile's Departure" and some other
verses which followed it from the
same hand, hat he resolved to make
the acquaintance of his new contribu-
tor, and he drove over to see him.
Whittier, then a boy of eighteen, was
summoned from the fields where he
was working, clad only in shirt,
trousers, and straw hat, and having
slipped in ut the back door SO that he
might put his shoes and coat on, came
into the room with ''shrinking diff
dence, almost unable to speak, and
blushing like n maiden The editor
was a young man himself, not more
than twenty-five or twenty-three, and
the friendship that began with this
visit lasted until death ended it. How
strong and close it was, and how i,
was made TO serve the cause of free.
dom, may be learned in the life of the
great abolitionist, William Lloyd Gar
rison. which was the editors name
William H. Rtdetng, IN ST. Nicholas.